1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic mounting apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an automatic mounting apparatus which picks up electronic components held on a tape one by one in sequence and mounts them on a printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Automatic mounting apparatuses for mounting electronic components such as, for example, capacitors, resistors, inductors, diodes and the like on the printed circuit board have been proposed and realized. One example of the conventional automatic mounting apparatus is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,576 patented on Dec. 16, 1980, the U.S. Pat. No. 4,393,579 patented on July 19, 1983 and so on. Some kinds of the conventional automatic mounting apparatus hold electronic components on a tape at nearly equal intervals in the longitudinal direction thereof and pick up the electronic components from this tape one by one in sequence, mounting them on the printed circuit board. And then, when all the electronic components held on one tape have been picked up, the tape is replaced with new one, and the automatic mounting operation is continued. However, in the conventional automatic mounting apparatus, even when all the electronic components on the tape are picked up and the tape is emptied, no new tape can be prepared in advance because there is no means for detecting the empty state at all. On the other hand, operation of the automatic mounting apparatus is required to be stopped to replace the tape, and that no tape can be prepared in advance as is described above elongates the time for replacement, resulting in elongating the stop time of the automatic mounting apparatus. Consequently, in the conventional apparatuses, the rate of operation has been reduced due to the tape replacement.